The nose's sudden disappearance, its subsequent gaddings about, its masqueradings as, firstly, a chinovnik and, secondly, itself -- all these have come of witchcraft practised either by you or by adepts in pursuits of a refinement equal to your own.

This was natural in the initial stage of the Revolution, when class lines had not had time to reveal themselves, when the aspirations of the so-called united revolutionary front found expression in the diffuse program of a party that was ready to welcome equally the workingman who feared to break away from the peasant; the peasant who was seeking land and liberty; the intellectual attempting to guide both of them; the chinovnik (officeholder) endeavoring to adjust himself to the new regime.